k logs pulled out and hidden
with a rapidity no words can describe. Brunet, anxious not to witness
this manoeuvre, which he readily foresaw, rushed after the keeper to
help him up; then he placed him on the bank and wet his handkerchief in
water to wash the eyes of the poor fellow, who, in spite of his agony,
was trying to reach the brook.

"You are in the wrong, Vatel," said Brunet; "you have no right to enter
houses, don't you see?"

The old woman, a little hump-backed creature, stood on the sill of the
door, with her hands on her hips, darting flashes from her eyes and
curses from her foaming lips shrill enough to be heard at Blangy.

"Ha! the villain, 'twas well done! May hell get you! To suspect me of
cutting trees!--_me_, the most honest woman in the village. To hunt me
like vermin! I'd like to see you lose your cursed eyes, for then we'd
have peace. You are birds of ill-omen, the whole of you; you invent
shameful stories to stir up strife between your master and us."

The keeper allowed the sheriff to bathe his eyes and all the while the
latter kept telling him that he was legally wrong.

"The old thief! she has tired us out," said Vatel at last. "She has been
at work in the woods all night."

As the whole family had taken an active hand in hiding the live wood and
putting things straight in the cottage, Tonsard presently appeared at
the door with an insolent air. "Vatel, my man, if you ever again dare
to force your way into my domain, my gun shall answer you," he said.
"To-day you have had the ashes; the next time you shall have the fire.
You don't know your own business. That's enough. Now if you feel hot
after this affair take some wine, I offer it to you; and you may come
in and see that my old mother's bundle of fagots hadn't a scrap of live
wood in it; it is every bit brushwood."

"Scoundrel!" said the keeper to the sheriff, in a low voice, more
enraged by this speech than by the smart of his eyes.

Just then Charles, the groom, appeared at the gate of the Grand-I-Vert.

"What is the matter, Vatel?" he said.

"Ah!" said the keeper, wiping his eyes, which he had plunged wide open
into the rivulet to give them a final cleansing. "I have some debtors in
there that I'll cause to rue the day they saw the light."

"If you take it that way, Monsieur Vatel," said Tonsard, coldly, "you
will find we don't want for courage in Burgundy."

Vatel departed. Not feeling much curiosity to know what the trouble